"Love has nothing to do with sex!" Hael snapped. "I fail to see what her being debased by that jackal has to do with anything."
"You do not want to see," said Amala. "If you can't inject it, swallow it, or rub it on, it doesn't have meaning for you."
Hael stood, her lower lip thrust forward in challenge. "Why, you scrawny Ionarian cow, if you can't..."
"Ladies, please!" Dr. Dean cut in. "We don't need to engage in personalities here!"
"I do not agree that you need to have Bridget Dunne prostitute herself to Kamerone Cree in order for our plan to work." Hael exclaimed. "Madame Director?" Dr. Dean's Vid-Com interrupted.
"Yes?"
"Dr. Dunne is here, Madame."
Beryla Dean looked hard at Hael Sejm. "I was chosen as the leader of our little group, Sejm. When you joined, you agreed to abide by my decisions in all matters." She stood, as well, and placed her hands on her hips. "My decision is that Bridget has to be just as obsessed with Cree as he is becoming with her in order for our plan to work. If you are not happy about it, that's too damned bad. That is the way it is going to be."
"You are either with us or against us," Amala added. She looked up. "Which is it to be?"
Hael glared at the two women then pointedly looked away. She lifted her snifter of Chalean brandy and drained it. "By all means do as the two of you see fit."
Bridget could sense the hostility in the room as soon as she entered and seated herself on the sofa across from Doctors Dean and Dayle. She accepted the glass of sherry the Director poured for her and sat twirling it between her palms, waiting to be told why she was there.
"I don't suppose he's let down his guard with you yet," commented Dr. Dean.
"Not that I have noticed," replied Bridget.
"We knew it was going to take time to win him over to a way of life he has never known existed," Dr. Dayle reminded them.
"What has been his mood since his return?" asked Beryla.
"He's been very jittery for the last two days." She looked up from the swirls of sherry in her glass. "He's still furious about the sabotage of his `bot and the problems he had on re-entry."
"For which no definitive cause was found." Amala Dayle grinned.
Bridget shrugged. "Yes, but he knows the Resistance is behind it."
"He can't prove it." Dr. Dean chuckled. "And the official review states: `No suggestion of outside interference.'"
"There was no danger was there?"
Hael Sejm spoke up for the first time since Bridget had arrived. "Concerned for the Iceman's safety, Bridie?"
Bridget glanced at the Chalean chemist. "With the targets, Dr. Sejm."
"Ah, yes, the good Sisters!" Amala Dayle exclaimed. "How are they, Bridie?"
"Sister Mary Joseph is fascinated by everything she sees here," answered Bridget. "I think she considers it all high adventure. The others, with the exception of Sister Mary Francis, are meek and have accepted their situation."
"What of this Mary Francis person?" Hael queried. "Will she prove to be a problem?" She sincerely hoped so.
Bridget shook her head. "She's just one of those women who complains about everything. Frankly, I can't imagine why they allowed her in the Order."
"Is he beginning to show any sexual interest in you?" the Director asked, drawing everyone's immediate attention to her by the abrupt change in the subject.
Bridget blushed. "Yes and no," she said. She took in a long breath, exhaled, then set her glass down on the table in front of her. "There are times when I find him staring at me with this odd expression on his face."
"I know it well," the Director commented. "It's the old `I have no idea what the hell to do with her' look." She rested her arm along the back of her chair. "What I've come to expect about that expression when I see it on Drae's face is a prelude to him finding out what just exactly the hell to do with me."
"I didn't think there was a man alive who didn't know what to do with a woman under his control," Hael suggested. She cast Bridget a soft look. "At least he hasn't thrown you to the floor and ravaged you yet."
A bright red flame of embarrassment spread over Bridget's face. "Not yet," she breathed.
"We were discussing the situation before you arrived," Amala piped up. "Beryla thinks you should press the matter with him."
Bridget's head turned toward the Director. "I thought you said I should just let matters take their natural course." She had turned pale. "Has something changed?"
Beryla smiled gently. "We know that whatever Kamerone Cree does, so will the other Reapers do. What the Reapers do, so, too, will the Keepers and Shepherds and all the little fish swimming around under them." She repositioned herself in the her chair and sat forward, her body language saying what she was about to impart was of vital importance.
"Kamerone is the Alpha Male among the Reaper caste. That alone would be cause for the others to pay close attention to his desires. You couple that with the fact that he is of the Royal House of Brell and there is no way the other six Ry-Chalean warriors will not side with him when the time comes."
"He is the last of the Brells," Amala put in, glancing at Sejm before continuing. "His mother was the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter of the House of Brell. There will be no more if something happens to Kamerone."
"I don't see— "
Hael Sejm cut Bridget off. "Neither do I."
"Kamerone will not go up against the Empire unless he has a damned good reason for doing it. The plan we have set into motion will give him the impetus he needs to start the revolution. As soon as he makes the first strike against his masters, the Reapers will join him, then seventy-five to eighty percent of the warriors will fall behind them like dominoes." The Director shrugged. "The other twenty to twenty-five percent will be easily vanquished. The Reapers will take charge of the space stations and it will only be a matter of hours before Rysalia Prime falls into the hands of the Resistance."
"So tell the girl why she has to whore for Kamerone Cree in order to have all that take place!" snarled Hael.
Beryla Dean turned a frosty look to her old friend. "Hael, I really wish you would push that chip off your shoulder. You, better than any woman alive, should know that the best way to capture a man's interest is straight through that damned piece of flesh dangling between his legs! Get hold of that and I can guarantee you will get his attention and keep it!"
"I am not saying I will not sleep with him," Bridget said and the other three women turned to her with elevated brows and parted lips. "I am just asking why it has to be before he goes to Helios Twelve. He is due to Transition soon and he's already informed me he will be gone the entire day while that happens." She shuddered, looked down at the hands clutched in her lap. "I am told excessive levels of testosterone can bring on Transition. I have no desire to be beneath him when that happens."
"You are absolutely correct!" Hael flung Beryla a triumphant look. "Right there is reason enough not to press the issue until a better time can be found!" If Hael Sejm had her way, that evil time would never come.
"All right," the Director agreed. "I can see where his Transition cycle might present a problem." She exchanged a look with Amala Dayle. "We'll hold off until he returns from the penal colony."
Bridget flinched, unaware that she had, but the other three women were quick to note it. The subliminals in the Chalean pipe music had made powerful suggestions to the young woman that she should care what happened to Cree. Other suggestionaries had been encoded within the music to make her less afraid of the Reaper and more receptive to any advances he might make. Still others had been designed to influence her perception of him as a male: his darkly handsome face, his intriguing brogue, his powerful body and stature among the warrior caste.
"What you are doing is very important, Bridget," the Director stated, drawing the young woman's gaze to her. "He is a strong man and fully capable of taking care of himself on Helios Twelve. There is no need for you to worry."
"She's not so much concerne
d about his safety as she is about what is going to happen next week," Amala said softly. "Am I right, dear?"
Bridget nodded. "I am terrified of what he might do."
"Don't be," Hael snapped. "The subliminals will not allow him to do any more harm than what we will allow."
"He won't ever hurt you," the Director assured her.
"I know," Bridget agreed, the subliminals used on her surfacing. "I wasn't worried about me."
Hael frowned heavily. Had they accidentally included something in the sublims that should have been left out? She thought back to the encoded messages and mentally shook her head. No, the correct wording had been there. She looked at Bridget and pursed her lips. Bridget had not been her choice for this assignment; Dorrie had. Dorrie did not have the tender heart Dunne had and, to Sejm's way of thinking, Dorrie would have been the better choice.
"It's close to twenty-one hundred hours, Bridie," the Director advised. "You'd better get back to him.
A long sigh escaped Bridget Dunne and she nodded her agreement. "I hate going back."
"We know," Amala commiserated. "When things get tattered around the edges, just remember what our goal is. That should help."
HER FOOTSTEPS slowed the closer she got to the elevator that would take her to Level Ten, the deck on which the highest-ranking Reaper lived.
Three weeks. He had allowed her to go unescorted to Dr. Dean's quarters for three weeks now. The first week, he'd walked her there himself, depositing her at the Director's door and waiting until she was safely inside before leaving. He was there precisely at 2100 hours, waiting to escort her home. The second week, he had gone down with her in the elevator to Level Eight, but had not walked her to Dr. Dean's door, only stood between the opened elevator doors and watched her. But at 2100 hours, he had been there to take her back.
"I do not need a crossing guard!" she had told him somewhat angrily tonight when it had been time to leave. "I think I can remember to look both ways before I cross the corridor! I've no desire to get run over by a speeding cybot!"
Cree had stared at her for a long time, his eyebrows drawn together over his nose, then a slight quirk of his lips had told her he was amused by her show of pique. The amusement had fled his eyes replaced with a stern, fatherly look. "I will see you to Level Eight," was his answer.
When Bridget had exited Dr. Dean's quarters tonight, she had been surprised to find both the corridor and the elevator empty. It was this new measure of trust that worried Bridget the most.
What, she thought with a cold shiver, would he do next week when he finds that trust had been betrayed?
Chapter 12
BECAUSE OF what he was, the moment Kamerone Cree was thrust rudely into the world from between his mother's bloody thighs he became a scientific experiment. He was taken, placed in an incubator, carried to a specially designed bioengineering lab and kept away from all human contact, as well as the companionship of the six others of his kind who were born after him. Faceless, sexless, impersonal cybots took care of him as an infant; trained him as a toddler; instructed him never to cry, to smile, to do any of the normal things little boys do. He stayed with the AIUs until he was five, at which time he was handed over to the Ministry of Science where every test known at that time was run on the child. At age six, he was handed over to the Ministry of Behavioral Modification. It was here that the micro-receivers had been surgically implanted into his brain. At the age of ten, he was sent to the Fleet Academy where, for the first time, he met the other boys like himself: Kullen, Tohre, Kiel, Coure, Gehdrin, and Belial. His informative years were spent with the other Reapers: warriors with the same deadly characteristics as his own. He was taught never to rely on anyone but his own kind. To distrust all outsiders. To consider lesser men— men without his unique abilities— beneath him.
And to think of females— and Terran females in particular— as worthless.
At the time Kamerone Cree purchased Bridget Dunne, there were forty-eight women to every man of the Rysalian Empire. Overpopulated with women, the warriors considered females expendable and no female under the age of eighteen could be found anywhere on the fifteen space stations or Rysalia Prime. Each and every female fetus conceived was terminated while the males were allowed to live. The incubators were filled to overflowing with male infants culled from Reaper sperm; Kamerone Cree, alone, had more than forty male children— all destined to be Reapers— being trained on Khamsin Proper by cybot nannies. Another five were ensconced at the Ministry of Science.
The women of the Resistance had long endured the dictatorial demands of the Rysalians. The time had come to put an end to the abortions and the slavery; the abductions from Earth. Nurturers by nature, the women wanted to pair off and mate with men of their own choosing. They wanted to have children they could raise to maturity. They wanted to live with the man they loved and see their children's children born. They wanted to live in a peaceful world free of male domination.
The only way for them to achieve their goal was to stop the Empire's spread of influence. To halt the genetic programs designed to create blindly obedient males who obeyed Empire mandates with cold-blooded precision. To stop the harvesting of females from which came males who did not question the insanity of faceless, emotionless breeding. To stamp out the notion that emotional attachment to one's offspring was a bad thing.
But the women of the Resistance were not the only ones who thought this way.
Among those who wished for a drastic change in Empire policy were numerous high-ranking officers who saw the folly of a continuation of indiscriminate breeding. Who had the wisdom and foresight to understand that things had gone way beyond Confederation control and intent. The other worlds of the Confederation: Serenia, Ionary, Chale, Virago, Oceania, and Necroman, did not treat their females in the way Rysalia had subjugated theirs. Kinsmen of some of the women held by the Empire were beginning to speak of war. The tide of complacency that had endured for more than forty years was now turning against Rysalia and those who understood this, sided with the Resistance.
"HE WILL receive orders to report to the Ministry of Science for transportation in just a few minutes. He will be ordered to leave in the morning," Beryla told Hael.
"I am glad I won't be in his quarters when he finds out the transport to Hell-12 has finally come through," replied Amala Dayle.
"Bridget says he got angry with her when she requested an additional hour away tonight," said the Director.
"Did he grant his permission?" asked Hael, knowing the man would not.
"I don't need to answer that," Beryla snapped.
"He is not going to be happy when she stays anyway," said Amala.
"Is she worried about tonight?"
"I explained to Bridget he wasn't angry at her, but at himself for not understanding the emotions ripping through him right now. He knows the time is getting close for him to leave her. He isn't dreading the punishment; he's dreading not being with her."
"He's never known jealousy before," Amala reminded her. "Or felt overwhelming attraction that is as alien to him."
"Attraction, hell. You mean lust." Hael snorted. She was standing at the bank of windows in Beryla's quarters that overlooked a black expanse of space. "The implant he has in his hypothalamus was placed there to control his sex drive. I have used a synthetic neurotransmitter to counteract the damage done when he was ten. Now he has the same sexual function as a normal male." She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the glass. "And I am sorry I ever got involved in this."
Dr. Dean rolled her eyes. She was getting tired of Hael Sejm's attitude. The woman was becoming increasingly vocal in her disagreement with the Resistance's goals. If Sejm had her oddball way, every man ever born would be strangled at birth and sex would become a thing of the past. As much as Beryla understood the dark moods into which her friend often fell, she could not help wonder if the rape of Hael Sejm so many years earlier had slightly unhinged the biochemist. Her intense distrust and dislike of men wer
e not good things. In fact, it was becoming clear to most of the levelheaded members of the Resistance that Hael Sejm would have to be watched if they didn't want disaster to strike.
Amala, too, was worried about the Chalean scientist. The two women had taken an instant dislike to one another upon meeting many years before and that dislike had grown steadily worse since Amala had become the consort of Commodore Lexis, the OIC of the Ministry of Public Education.
"No matter your feelings, Hael," Amala said, her attention glued to the despondent chemist, "you must say your prayers to Alel for Bridget's safety tonight."
Hael looked around, her face concealing her innermost thoughts. "Oh, I have already done that. I have also prayed to the Great Lady."
Beryla Dean felt a cold finger of dread go down her spine. She had heard of the Great Lady, the Prophetess of the Daughters of the Multitude. The sect had a sanctuary on Rysalia Prime left over from the days before the catastrophe that had killed all the Rysalian women. Not even the Empire dared venture inside the sacred grounds of the religious order for it was rumored the Daughters were sorceresses of the deadliest power. She had never met a woman who professed to be a part of the religion, but she wasn't surprised Sejm would be.
"The Great Lady will provide for us," Hael said, turning back to stare once more out the window. "She will see us free of our enslavers. I promise you that."
THE SUMMONS to the Ministry of Science came at a little past 1900 hours. The message was clear and to the point: He was to report to the transporter room the following morning at 0700 hours for transport to Hell-12.
Cree slammed his fist against the wall, denting the metal. He crumpled the summons in his hand and pitched it across his living area, stalked to a chair, overturned it, then righted it with several heavy slams that should have cracked the frame. He sat down heavily in it, a deep scowl etched across his handsome face.
"Why now?" he seethed, pounding his fist on the chair. "Why the hell now?" He'd thought he had at least another week before having to go to that living hell
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